Sometimes when parents skip vaccinations for their kids, it's more a matter of delay than total refusal, a new survey finds. More than 1 in 10 parent parents of young kids follow an alternative schedule of vaccinations that doesn't fit with the recommendations of doctors and public health officials. The results published in Pediatrics come from a national survey conducted online. Of the parents who don't follow the recommended timing for vaccinations, most refused only some immunizations—those against flu were ditched most frequently. Parents who delayed vaccination were most likely to do so for chickenpox and measles-mumps-rubella. And parents were most likely to spread out the shots did so for the MMR vaccine and DTaP, against diptheria, tetanus and whooping cough. Why are parents following a different path than the one recommended? The University of Michigan researchers found that a substantial majority felt it was safer for their kids to delay vaccination. Another finding the researchers found troubling was that quite a few parents following the recommended schedule agreed with the proposition that delaying vaccines is safer.
Drug abusers are exploiting Medicare prescription's benefit to score large quantities of painkillers, and taxpayers have to foot most of the bill, congressional investigators say in a report. About 170,000 Medicare recipients received prescriptions from multiple doctors for 14 frequently abused medications in 2008, the Government Accountability Office found in an investigation for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. A Medicare recipient in Georgia got prescriptions for 3,655 oxycodone pills -- more than a four-year supply of the painkiller -- from 58 different prescribers. Another, in California, got prescriptions for a nearly five-year supply of fentanyl patches and pills from 21 different prescribers. Fentanyl is a powerful narcotic used to treat relentless cancer pain. The cost of the questionable prescriptions amounted to $148 million in 2008. Overall, taxpayers pay three-fourths of the cost of the Medicare prescription drug program, which covers some 28 million seniors and disabled people for about $55 billion a year.
A team of researchers has analyzed the Top 5 overused clinical activities for primary care physicians presented by the Good Stewardship Working Group. Although imaging dominated the Top 5 list, the recommendations published online Oct. 1 in the Archives of Internal Medicine focused on curbing brand name statin prescriptions and addressing high cost activities in non-primary care specialties. Among the major points put forth in the article from Minal S. Kale, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and colleagues, is that more focus is needed on reducing costs by shifting to cheaper generic drugs, particularly by reducing the use of expensive, brand name statins. They also noted that the scope of such lists should be wider than just primary care. "Expanding the methods of physician consensus to identify 'high-value' targets to specialties outside of primary care could bring us closer to achieving the goal of affordable and high-quality healthcare," wrote the authors. The Good Stewardship Working Group had previously presented the top five overused clinical activities across the three primary care specialties of pediatrics, internal medicine, and family medicine, as chosen by physician panel consensus. All of the items on the list were believed to be commonly used, but offered little benefit to patients.
Physicians are using social media at a higher rate than the rest of the population, according to a new survey cited in American Medical News. But in their professional use of social media, they're still shying away from contact with their own patients or even with online patient communities. An August survey by the online physician learning collaborative QuantiaMD showed that 87% of physicians use social media. This finding is in line with the results of a Frost & Sullivan poll conducted between April and May, which indicated that 84% of doctors were using social media for personal purposes. A study published in August by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 65% of the general adult population used social media. Susan Giurleo,, a psychologist and consultant who blogs about social media at BizSavvy Therapist, has some other theories. Besides doctors' rapid adoption of mobile devices, which makes it easy to dip into Facebook or Twitter on their lunch breaks, they like to communicate with other physicians across the country and around the world. "It's a really good way to keep up with information and research," she said.
The journal that published a high-profile paper linking chronic fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus is now investigating allegations that a figure in that report was manipulated. The appearance in Science of the 2009 paper caused an immediate sensation among patients who have yearned for an explanation for their condition. Its authors said they had found evidence of a retrovirus called XMRV in the blood of people with chronic fatigue syndrome more frequently than in the blood of their healthy peers. The report included a figure purporting to depict lab test results from seven blood samples, including two from chronic fatigue syndrome patients whose blood appears to show evidence of XMRV and five from healthy people whose blood does not. But the leader of the team that authored the 2009 paper, researcher Judy Mikovits, apparently presented the same figure -- carrying different labels and supporting a different point -- in a talk given at a conference on Sept. 23 in Ottawa. A copy of her PowerPoint presentation circulating among an email group also reveals an apparent third version of the image, with a third set of labels, when formatting is turned off.
Just hours after the announcement that the 2011 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology had been awarded to three scientists for their work on the immune system, Rockefeller University announced that one of the researchers, Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, had died a few days earlier. Steinman was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer four years ago, and his life was extended using a dendritic-cell based immunotherapy of his own design, the university said. His death creates a dilemma for the Nobel committee, which said they were unaware that he had passed away at the time they made their announcement. According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation since 1974, a dead person cannot be nominated for a prize posthumously, but someone who dies after the award is announced is still eligible.